Project
ALEPH - A European-Middle East Agency in Berlin
Goals
Europe and the Middle East have shaped each other in the course of a long history. Standing in the foreground thereby were Islam, Judaism, and Christianity - and the attempt, in Europe as well as the Middle East, to develop political traditions that, respecting citizens' religious convictions, would lead to a secular civil society. This project has not been completed. On the contrary, it is endangered in Europe as well as in the Middle East. To work on its further development is an urgent task.
ALEPH - the European agency whose establishment in Berlin is envisioned - sees its task in initiating, fostering, and accompanying projects that bring the Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and secular cultures of the Middle East into contact with the cultures of Europe. The goal in this is to bring the Arabic-language, Jewish-Muslim heritage of the Enlightenment more strongly into European consciousness again. This would contribute to Europe's self-finding and to the shaping of a European future, which will be increasingly shaped by contact among the different cultures.
The agency can take recourse to a large, diverse network of artists, intellectuals, and researchers from the Middle East and Europe who are already in contact with each other.
Structure
We are not suggesting the founding of an institution, but of a "task force" that would emerge from an already existing network of artists and intellectuals. A directorship would represent it externally. A lean secretariat would serve this directorship. An advisory board of internationally recognized artists, intellectuals, and researchers would be constituted.
The agency's program would be realized throughout Europe in existing cultural and research institutions - theaters, festivals, universities, etc. This would ensure that no additional niche for "exotic" cultural productions would result. The aim is rather to provide a visible site in existing structures for content that fits the goal described above. A small residence program would make it possible to invite primarily artists and intellectuals of Islamic and Jewish background to stay in Berlin. Theaters and museums, orchestras and media, academies and universities could make use of their presence and cooperate with them. ALEPH should have a local component ("correspondents") in the Middle East.
In Berlin, the agency would have a building - it must have a clearly visible, attractive address.
Projects and Events
The agency fosters intellectual exchange between Europe and the societies and cultures of the Middle East. This happens in the form of individual events, event series, and projects conceived over the long term. Here little must be invented, and much that already exists can be further developed and fostered, for example:
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the exchange of writers and numerous joint reading tours by German and Middle Eastern authors;
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regular cooperative projects between the Berliner Volksbühne (and other Berlin theaters) and theaters and theater people from the Middle East;
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a series of public debates and many non- or semi-public discussions on urgent societal, political, and cultural problems;
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an impressive series of books at the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt (series title: "Quellen der Aufklärung - "Sources of the Enlightenment") with translations of the central philosophical, scholarly, and religious source texts of Middle Eastern cultures;
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a philological research project focusing on the network of relationships between Arabic and European literatures;
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a series of talks in Berlin to portray non-European cultures;
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a network of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars to develop a secular hermeneutics in common;
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exhibitions on Middle Eastern-European cultural contact.
The agency would begin its work with a limited temporal perspective - which, of course, should be long enough to avoid creating the impression of fostering "event culture". After this period, it would be evaluated - and then accordingly either further supported or ended. The agency would be an institution of the European Union in Berlin - and would work with a great degree of self-sufficiency and political independence.
by Navid Kermani and Wolf Lepenies
